


Best Marks Go to Cheaters and Memorizers

by Perpetual Motion (perpetfic)



Category: Mad Men
Genre: Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 19:57:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetfic/pseuds/Perpetual%20Motion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy, Ken, and how they got that pact they have in season 5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Marks Go to Cheaters and Memorizers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [orangesparks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangesparks/gifts).



> Beta points to my husband. This was his very first beta job. What's the gift for that? Flowers? Title comes from _Up the Down Staircase_ , which was a major bestseller in 1965 and still a pretty damn fine book.

Hours after Peggy walks in with Topaz and gets eclipsed by Don’s engagement, Ken finds her in her office, grins like he’s won the world, and says, “Come on, let me buy you a drink. Toast your victory.”

Peggy considers turning him down. It should have been his first thought after Don dropped the bomb about Megan (and Peggy hopes Don doesn’t request further praise from her on that decision because she has none to give) and didn’t offer any reward for their hard-earned save, but Ken’s here now, and his smile is genuine, and Peggy could use a drink, so she says, “Okay,” and leaves copy half-written on her desk and lets Ken help her on with her coat.

They go to a place Ken knows, close to work, fairly upscale, similar to a lot of the places they go after work, though Peggy’s never been to this particular one. Ken orders whiskey. Peggy orders the same. Ken says, before the waiter can walk way, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I won’t tell anyone you switched off rye.”

“Martini,” Peggy says. “with anchovies olives.”

Ken chuckles and rubs his hands together with pleasure. “So, this is Peggy Olsen; the lady who can hold her whiskey but prefers a martini.”

“If I ever mixed one for myself, half the office would show up with empty glasses and expect me to keep them full,” she says.

“No judgment from me,” Ken says. “I try not to play the whole game.”

“Liar,” Peggy replies, and Ken chuckles.

“I really do try,” Ken says. He pauses as the waiter delivers their drinks. “I just have lines I won’t cross.”

“Like what?”

“Like using my life to promote my work.”

Peggy thinks about that as she sips her martini. It is icy cold and deliciously sharp when the gin hits the back of her throat. “What do you mean?”

“In creative, you can use your life to influence your work, pull from your own memories for copy. That’s what you did at Topaz today.”

“Yes,” Peggy agrees.

“But it’s not the same in accounts. Your life—your family and your interests and all of it—it’s…” Ken shakes his head and stares into his whiskey for a moment. “It’s never used to bring out a bigger idea. It becomes this prop you dust off when you need to impress someone. I don’t want that. That wasn’t—” he bites off the rest of the sentence and downs half his whiskey in one go.

Peggy doesn’t ask what he was going to say. She knows. That wasn’t how I was raised, she thinks, and she tries to find the words to show that she understands him. . “Do you think I only got Topaz because I’m a woman?” she asks. It’s not what she wants to say, not even close, but it’s what comes out.

“You got Topaz because you’re brilliant,” Ken replies. “You’re the best we’ve got.”

“Don—”

“Don’s aging out,” Ken interrupts, an edge on his tone. “And he’s doing it badly.”

Peggy’s instinct is to fight against that, but she thinks of the Samsonite pitch he came up with, designed like a print ad, nothing that will move for television. A static ad for an increasingly moving world, and then she thinks of Don as she knows him. He thinks he’s keeping up, but sometimes Peggy can see he’s not, not really, and her feelings twist around in her gut. “Don is…”

“You know things about him, don’t you?” Ken asks. He says it quietly, not wanting to be overheard.

“I know everything about him,” Peggy says, because it’s true. “And he knows everything about me.”

Ken relaxes, gives Peggy his usual sunny grin. “Skeletons in your closet, Miss Olsen?” he teases. 

I had a baby, and I gave it away, Peggy thinks. The urge to say it hangs on the back of her tongue. Every time someone makes claims to her sweet innocence, Peggy wants to blurt it out. I had a baby, and I gave it away, and every day, I feel less like it was the worst decision I ever made.

“Peggy?” Ken’s leaned forward again, hand reaching for Peggy’s arm.

“I’m fine,” she says. Ken gives her a look that says he doesn’t believe her entirely, but he won’t push, she knows. Even if they are something like friends, he won’t push for answers from a lady unwilling to give them.

They finish their drinks in near-unison, Ken signaling the waiter for another round.

“I shouldn’t,” Peggy says.

“I shouldn’t have,” Ken replies. “I know better than to assume anyone’s life was easy just because they’re happy.”

“Skeletons in your closet?” She delivers it wrong, no emphasis on any single word, just a flat question with a slight accusing tone at the end. She meant for it to be light-hearted, a way to lighten the mood, but it’s all wrong, heavy in the air.

“No,” Ken says, and there’s a worry line on his forehead like he’s embarrassed to have made Peggy uncomfortable. “I’m a farm-raised Vermont boy, and that’s about it, but my mother raised me to understand that happiness comes from overcoming hardship for some people, and it’s not polite to assume you know someone because of who they are now.”

“And how did your father raise you?” Peggy’s always curious about fathers. She tries not to be, but she can’t help but wonder who’d she be if hers had lived longer. She wonders if she’d have settled down like her mother, with a family and a baby she’d have kept whether she really wanted it or not because her father would have added to the pressure of her mother’s expectations. She wonders if she’d ever had worked at all.

“With a switch,” Ken replies. “But not a lot of the time.”

The waiter brings the second round of drinks, and Peggy thinks about not drinking hers. It’s impolite for a lady to have one too many, and martinis always sneak up on her. “Does Cynthia like what you do?” she asks.

Ken beams, the kind of smile Peggy’s never seen on the faces of any of the other men in the office. Not Don or Roger or Harry or…Pete. Peggy takes the first sip off the top of her drink.

“Cynthia understands it,” Ken says. “She’s in publishing because she loves the written word, but she understands that sometimes you take a job because it's what keeps you comfortable.”

“You don’t love accounts?”

Ken doesn’t quite shake his head, catches himself with his neck half-turned. “It makes me good money, and I’m good at it,” he says. 

He’s so polite, Peggy thinks. Her mother would love him if he were Catholic. “But you’re not passionate about it.”

“What’s there to be passionate about? It’s not like what you do. You get to write a story every day. Maybe it’s about pantyhose or canned beans or cigarettes, but every day you get to go in and sit down and get paid to write a story.”

There’s something sharp in his eyes, a longing Peggy’s seen a lot. It was in her own eyes when she got hired as a secretary and wondered if that was all she’d ever be. It used to be in Pete’s eyes, but it’s faded into something hard and mean over the years. “Does everyone in accounts want to be in creative?”

Ken chuckles. “I don’t, actually. I…” he looks around the bar, eying the dark corners, and then he leans forward like he’s sharing secrets again. “I write. I write every night.”

“You had that story in _The Atlantic_ ,” Peggy says. “I remember.”

“It’s more than that though. I’ve gotten other stories published. I have places I can just send a story and they’ll take it. Not many, but some.” His eyes are bright, happiness rolling off him in a wave.

“That’s wonderful,” Peggy says because it is and because she’s seeing in Ken, for the first time, the kind of heavy passion she sees in herself when she looks in the mirror after nailing a pitch. “That’s really nice.”

“Yeah. It’s…it’s good.” Ken leans back again and reaches for his drink, a light flush creeping up his neck like he’s embarrassed to be excited. “I keep the job because story writing doesn’t pay a lot, and there are expectations, you know?”

Peggy knows about expectations. She lists them in her head. I should have stayed quiet during the Belle Jolie brainstorming. I should have stayed in Brooklyn. I should have stayed at Sterling Cooper. I should have kept the baby. “I know,” she says, almost a whisper, looking into her drink because she thinks if she looks at Ken right now, he’ll be able to read something deep and personal in her eyes.

Ken sips his whiskey and looks over at the door as a couple walk in. They’re both well-dressed and neatly pressed, obviously starting a night on the town. “Who do you think they are?” he asks.

Peggy looks at them, and she sees what she can sell them. “She’s the lady we’re going to convince to wear Topaz.”

“And he’s the man we’re going to sell on baked beans,” Ken agrees. He smiles at Peggy. “I like working with you,” he says. “You really like what you do, and it makes me like what I do more, and you don’t get cynical like the others. You…you _want_ to do what you do. You’re not just waiting for the job you’re never going to get or doing what you do because it’s what you’ve always done.”

The compliment flusters her. She stares down at the table. There’s a spot of condensation on the table from her glass. She touches it with a finger. “You don’t seem like you resent your work like…”

“Pete?” Ken fills in. He grimaces when Peggy doesn’t answer. “Sorry. I’m just prickly tonight, I guess.”

“Do you like Pete?”

“He’s useful when he’s not being a complete toad. I thought we could be friends, but...” He shrugs. “Do you?”

She’s never sure, day to day, if she likes him or is still slightly in love with the idea of him—a hardworking accounts man who just needed a good wife—that she knows isn’t true at all now. “We understand one another,” she says.

“That’s a thing you’re good at. Understanding people most people don’t understand.”

“Am I?” She’s not fishing for a compliment; she honestly doesn’t know. 

“There’s something in you that can read people,” Ken says. “It’s a gift. I always wonder what you see when you look at the people we work with. I tried to write about it once, but it all sounded false.”

“You tried to write about me?” She can feel herself flushing and hopes the low light obscures it. She doesn’t want Ken to think she’s embarrassed. She’s not. She’s flattered because she feels important.

“Sometimes, you can write something based off what you’ve seen, and it’s perfect. It’s a moment captured in time, and you know you couldn’t do better, but sometimes, you try to write that something, and it’s all wrong, like having your hands one key off on a piano, you know?”

Peggy likes that image, hands one key off on the piano. “I know,” she says. “Writing copy can be like that.”

Ken curls his hands around his drink and watches her. “What do you see when you look at Roger?”

A sad man desperately clinging to every last hope he can find, Peggy thinks. “I don’t think we should have this conversation.”

“I won’t tell anyone. I just—that story haunts me almost, Peggy. I know it could be brilliant, but I can’t find it myself.”

“I’m not going to sit here and say anything about a senior partner when that senior partner could walk in at any time.”

Ken thinks about that, turning his glass slowly in his hands. “There’s a terrible diner four blocks up,” he says. “Roger Sterling wouldn’t go in it if it was the last place in Midtown he could get a glass of vodka.”

“You really want to know?”

“I really do.”

“I don’t think it’s right to talk like that.”

“It’s between you and me,” Ken says. “I promise.”

She believes him, but she doesn’t. The first rule she learned when dealing with men on a regular basis was that their promises got flimsy no matter the intensity of their solemn vow to stay silent. “No,” she says.

“What do you think the firm’s chances are for next year?” Ken asks. 

“Terrible,” Peggy replies. “Slim to none.” She doesn’t feel bad saying it. She’s been saying it for weeks, and no one wanted to listen, and she walked in with a quarter-million new account today and got overshadowed by an _engagement_. From _Don_ , who is—Peggy will only admit to herself—simply trading one pretty wife for another because that’s how it’s always been done, and he doesn’t know how to change for the times.

“Yeah, me too.” Ken throws back the rest of his drink and stands. “I’m going to pay the tab unless you want another.”

“No, this is fine.” Peggy takes four measured sips and leaves an empty glass behind her on the table as she gets up and follows the line of Ken’s back through the growing crowd.

They step outside together, both of them buttoning their jackets, and Ken looks like he wants to hug her and lift her off the ground like he did when he told her Topaz hired them. “I’ll make a pact with you right now, Peggy Olsen, before the booze kicks in so you know it’s genuine. If one of us gets an offer, we take the other with us. I’ll carry you over my shoulder if I have to, but I want you off the sinking ship with me.”

“We could get another account tomorrow.”

“True, but I’d rather walk in tomorrow knowing we’re looking out for each other.”

“Why?” Peggy can’t help but ask. 

“Honestly?” Ken asks.

“Yes.”

He touches her elbow and leads her a little away from the door of the bar, a little into the shadows outside of a streetlamp. He pitches his voice low. “I don’t trust them.”

“Who?”

“Any of them. Not Roger or Bert or Pete or Don.”

It hurts Peggy less than she expects to hear Don on that list. “Why not?”

“Because you brought in the first account in weeks, and it’s worth a quarter-million, and they’d rather pour champagne for an engagement than new business when we’re bleeding money.”

“So did you,” Peggy points out. It comes out in the bitter way she knows she has, the one that sneaks up on her when she didn’t know how badly she felt before she said it.

“I was going through my contacts,” Ken replies, seeming to not take offense at her tone. “I was making a list of places we could call tomorrow or next week.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. “Here. I wanted to talk to you about who to talk to next. Try to patch the hole in the ship before we take on too much water.”

“That’s too many metaphors,” Peggy says, and Ken laughs. “Why save it?” she asks. “Why not get out now?”

“Do you want to get out now?” Ken asks. “Do you want to work for some firm that didn’t handpick you if you can help it?”

She doesn’t. Not at all. Peggy unfolds the list. There are a dozen potentials listed, four of them with check marks next to them.

“The checks are for cold calls,” Ken says. “People who haven’t ever called us but we might be able to steal away from their current agency.”

“We?”

“Me and you,” Ken says. “I know we’ve only got a one-game streak, but it’s a start, right?”

Don would never do this for her, Peggy thinks. Don would never put this time and effort in for her. She’d have to fight tooth and nail to get a single one, prove herself worthy yet again against Stan and the other men in creative.

“Which way’s that diner?” Peggy asks.

Ken offers her his elbow with a pleased smile and turns them left. “If the lady will follow me, I’ll follow the lady,” he says, and Peggy laughs without meaning to, tucking the paper into her coat pocket as they wait for the light to change at the corner.

**Author's Note:**

> To my recip: I hope you enjoyed it. I was thrilled to get the prompt and explore how Ken and Peggy made that agreement, and I hope it's what you were hoping for.


End file.
